Compare Pulse by Ciphera and Wide Angle Analytics on capabilities, jurisdiction, assurance, and fit for European buyers.
Both listed as alternatives to: Fathom Analytics, Google Analytics
Belgium· Web Analytics
Needs review
Shortlist Pulse when you want cookieless traffic analytics plus uptime and Lighthouse in one Belgian-operated, Swiss-hosted SaaS and can accept a closed managed backend. Skip when you need full self-hosting or GA-style user-level history; consider Plausible Analytics or Simple Analytics instead.
Germany· Web Analytics
Needs review
Do not shortlist Wide Angle for new multi-year analytics: the vendor is winding the product down by end of August 2026. Existing customers should migrate using the promised data snapshot. For new EU privacy-analytics shortlists prefer Plausible, Pirsch, Simple Analytics, or Piwik PRO; keep Matomo-class stacks when self-host control is mandatory.
Highlighted rows differ between the two products.
| Feature | Pulse by Ciphera | Wide Angle Analytics |
|---|---|---|
| Country of origin | Belgium | Germany |
| Category | Web Analytics | Web Analytics |
| Open source | Yes | No |
| Self-hosted | No | No |
| Headquarters | Belgium | Germany |
| Legal entity | Ciphera BV | Input Objects GmbH, Scharnhorststraße 24, 10115 Berlin, Germany |
| Governing law | Belgian law (GDPR); Swiss FADP for infrastructure location | Not listed |
| US parent / control | No known US parent | No known US parent |
| CLOUD Act exposure (indicative) | Low | Medium |
| EU-hosted status | Partial | Not listed |
| Hosting / residency | Primary compute and object storage on Exoscale in Switzerland (Zurich). Encrypted backups and domain registration via Infomaniak (Switzerland). CDN/DNS/DDoS via Bunny (Slovenia HQ, global edge for transient IPs). Payments via Mollie (Netherlands). GitHub (US) for public source code only, per Trust page. | Visitor analytics: OVHcloud limited to FR/DE (vendor). Account path: Paddle (payments), Brevo email/automation, Infomaniak; older vendor post notes Brevo/Sendinblue encrypted DR involving AWS/GCP. No known US corporate parent. |
| Summary | Cookie-free web analytics with traffic, funnels, uptime and Lighthouse checks in one Belgian-operated, Swiss-hosted dashboard. | German cookieless-by-default web analytics SaaS (Input Objects GmbH, OVHcloud FR/DE). Product announced for discontinuation end of August 2026—prefer living EU peers for new deployments. |
| Tags |
| At a glance | Pulse by Ciphera | Wide Angle Analytics |
|---|---|---|
| HQ | Diegem, Belgium (Ciphera BV) | Berlin, Germany (Input Objects GmbH) |
| Legal entity | Ciphera BV (KBO/BCE 1013.721.660) | Not listed |
| Founded | 18 September 2024 (CBE) | Not listed |
| Primary data region | Switzerland (Exoscale Zurich) | Not listed |
| License | AGPL-3.0 client; managed backend closed | Not listed |
| Commercial model | Free Hobby tier; paid plans by traffic scale | Event/site SaaS tiers + 14-day trial (see official pricing) |
| Product launch | Not listed | November 2021 |
| Hosting (visitor path) | Not listed | OVHcloud France & Germany (vendor-stated) |
| Open source | Not listed | No |
| Self-host | Not listed | No |
| Status | Not listed | Discontinuing end of August 2026 |
| Cookieless | Yes (vendor claim: no cookies, no fingerprinting) | Not listed |
| Data residency regions | Switzerland (Exoscale primary; Infomaniak backups) | Not listed |
| Key capabilities | Pulse by Ciphera | Wide Angle Analytics |
|---|---|---|
| EU-operated | Yes | Not listed |
| Cookieless | Yes | Not listed |
| Open-source client | Yes | Not listed |
| Swiss-hosted data | Yes | Not listed |
| No analytics cookies | Yes | Not listed |
| Cookieless by default | Not listed | Yes |
| German GmbH (Berlin) | Not listed | Yes |
| OVHcloud FR/DE hosting | Not listed | Yes |
| SaaS only (no self-host) | Not listed | Yes |
| EOL Aug 2026 | Not listed | Yes |
Cookieless traffic dashboard
Pageviews, unique-visitor estimates, referrers, UTM campaigns, device or browser splits, and country-level geo from a single script tag, without cookies or fingerprinting according to Ciphera's privacy docs.
Journeys and conversion funnels
Step-by-step path columns and multi-step funnels with drop-off analysis, filterable by page, country, device, or referrer for privacy-preserving conversion debugging.
Uptime monitors with alert routes
Built-in uptime checks with downtime and recovery alerts to email, Slack, Discord, or a webhook, so availability sits beside traffic in one console.
Daily Lighthouse and Core Web Vitals
Scheduled mobile and desktop Lighthouse runs with performance, accessibility, best-practices, SEO scores, and Core Web Vitals trends without a separate RUM product.
Inspectable AGPL client and read API
Dashboard and tracking script are AGPL-3.0 on GitHub; Ciphera also documents a public read API, CLI, and export paths while keeping the managed backend closed.
Cookieless request-based sessions with daily rotating salt
Default mode hashes site + IP + User-Agent with a non-persisted daily salt (SHA-256). Same-day uniques without cookies or long-lived IDs; past sessions cannot be re-linked after salt rotation. Optional 24h cookie or canvas fingerprinting change the consent analysis.
Optional tracking modes for SPA and consent-gated detail
Enable HTTP(S)-only 24h cookies, client fingerprinting, or service-issued IDs for SPA reliability. Fingerprinting is off by default and may require consent—controllers must re-assess before enabling.
Marketer dashboards, custom events, and multi-site teams
Real-time charts for sources, pages, devices, UTM campaigns, goals, custom actions, and e-commerce revenue attribution. Higher tiers add multi-user sharing, permissions, and many sites without SQL.
CMS one-click installs and lightweight script embed
Plugins/integrations for WordPress, Squarespace, Wix, Ghost, Webflow, and common JS stacks; custom sites add a script tag. Built for marketers rather than BI engineers.
OVHcloud EU regions (FR/DE) for visitor analytics path
Vendor states product hosting is limited to OVHcloud France and Germany with no end-user analytics transfer outside EU/EEA and no sale of visitor data. Account billing/email use separate subprocessors (see Trust).
| Assurance & compliance | Pulse by Ciphera | Wide Angle Analytics |
|---|---|---|
| Independent security / no-logs audit | Not found Trust page states no independent audit yet; Tessera self-audit published; independent audit planned. | Not found No public independent pen-test or no-logs audit PDF found on site materials reviewed. |
| ISO 27001 | Not found Ciphera explicitly states it holds no ISO 27001 certification. | Not found No public ISO 27001 certificate page found. |
| SOC 2 / SOC 3 | Not found Ciphera explicitly states it holds no SOC 2 certification. | Not found No public SOC 2/3 report found. |
| GDPR / EU data protection | Vendor claimed Belgian controller; privacy policy describes GDPR/FADP bases and Pulse processor role. Not legal advice. | Vendor claimed German controller/processor entity; cookieless-default design; DPO named (DPO CONSULTING). Not legal advice. |
| US CLOUD Act exposure (indicative) | Partial EU (Belgian) entity with no known US parent; primary hosts are European (Exoscale, Infomaniak, Bunny, Mollie). Residual paths: GitHub (US) for source code only; Bunny global edge for transient IPs. Indicative only, not legal advice. | Partial EU GmbH, no known US parent, OVH FR/DE visitor hosting; offset by Paddle and Brevo-related infrastructure (incl. encrypted AWS/GCP DR per vendor blog). Assessment row—not vendor marketing. |
| Data processing agreement (B2B) | On request / NDA Privacy policy: DPA available on request at privacy@ciphera.net for Pulse processor relationships. | Vendor claimed Vendor blog/compliance materials state a signed DPA is offered; confirm current template with vendor. |
| EU AI Act | Not applicable Web analytics product; not an AI system product page. | Not applicable Web analytics product, not an AI system under typical AI Act product framing. |
| Considerations & known limitations | Pulse by Ciphera | Wide Angle Analytics |
|---|---|---|
| Managed backend is not open source | Medium You can audit the browser script and dashboard code, but not the operated ingestion and storage service. Procurement that requires full-stack self-host or full server auditability should look elsewhere. | Not listed |
| No ISO/SOC or independent audit yet | Medium Ciphera publishes threat models, a warrant canary, and a subprocessor list, but explicitly has no ISO 27001 or SOC 2 and no completed independent audit. Enterprise security reviews will need questionnaires and a signed DPA. | Not listed |
| Primary data residency is Switzerland, not EU/EEA | Low Swiss adequacy covers many GDPR transfer questions, but policies that hard-require EU/EEA datacenter soil will classify this as partial rather than EU-hosted. | Not listed |
| Marketing vs privacy wording conflicts | Low Product FAQ pages disagree on whether custom events ship today and whether a DPA is needed. Prefer privacy@ and the privacy policy for legal commitments until Ciphera aligns the FAQs. | Not listed |
| Product end-of-life (August 2026) | Not listed | High Vendor announced discontinuation; service runs until end of August 2026 with pro-rata refunds and a vendor-prepared snapshot—not a self-service export. New deployments risk forced migration within weeks. |
| No self-host continuity path | Not listed | High SaaS-only design means the product cannot be retained on your infrastructure after shutdown. |
| Account subprocessors beyond OVH | Not listed | Medium Paddle, Brevo, Infomaniak (and historical Brevo DR via US-group clouds) affect customer-account and support data paths even if visitor analytics stay on OVH EU. |
| Optional fingerprinting/cookies | Not listed | Medium Non-default modes can reintroduce consent obligations; misconfiguration is a controller risk. |
| No public ISO/SOC/independent audit | Not listed | Medium Assurance rests on design docs, DPA, and vendor claims unless private reports are provided under NDA. |
When: You need a mature EU cookieless analytics product with an official full-stack self-host option
Consider: Plausible Analytics
Plausible (Estonia) is the common self-host plus SaaS peer; Pulse keeps the backend managed-only.
When: You want a minimal Dutch cookieless counter without uptime or Lighthouse bundles
Consider: Simple Analytics
Closer peer for strictly analytics SaaS; Pulse differentiates with ops-style panels.
When: You need enterprise analytics with strong EU residency controls and heavier compliance packaging
Consider: Piwik PRO or Friendly Analytics
Heavier Matomo-class or Swiss-hosted peers when Pulse's startup assurance set is too thin.
When: You need a living cookieless EU SaaS analytics product
Consider: Plausible Analytics, Pirsch Analytics, or Simple Analytics
All remain active EU-oriented peers in this directory category.
When: You need self-host or deep plugin/on-prem control
Consider: Matomo (self-host or hosted peers) or Piwik PRO
Wide Angle never offered self-host and is shutting down.
When: You accept US ad-stack analytics for free depth
Consider: Google Analytics (GA4)
Different jurisdiction, cookie/consent model, and product surface—not a like-for-like privacy swap.